Constitution of No Authority

By Robert Ringer - Saturday, July 3, 2010

Reflections on a Revolution, Part III

By Robert Ringer

Caution: The following article contains graphic insights into reality that may not be suitable for blind patriots. Reader discretion advised.

In Part II of this article, I pointed out that democracy is a far more effective tool for controlling people than brute force. The chains of democracy are commonly referred to as “entitlements,” a hallucination dreamed up by scoundrels who will do anything in exchange for power. The something-for-nothing urge in most people makes them easy prey when it comes to the entitlement addiction.

The chief characteristic and distinguishing feature of a democracy is that it is based on majority rule (also known as “tyranny of the majority”). In a democracy, neither the individual nor a minority has any real protection against the unlimited power of the majority. Scary concept.

A democratic republic, on the other hand, is a form of government with the ostensible purpose of controlling the majority and, in so doing, protecting the unalienable rights of the individual and the minority. Like a democracy, a republic is a representative form of government, but it (in theory) limits the power of the government through a written constitution.

A constitution is (again, in theory) adopted by “the people” and can be changed by them through amendment. The United States is a republic with a constitution that divides its powers between three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial.

On the surface, the U.S. Constitution appears to be of utmost importance when it comes to protecting our liberty. But whether or not it is, perhaps a more important issue is whom the Constitution really has a moral and legal obligation to bind.

While most, if not all, of the Founding Fathers may have acted with the best of intentions, the sobering reality is that by creating the Constitution, then forcing people within a given geographical area to abide by it, was, on its face, an act of aggression. The man most often credited with initially bringing up this seemingly self-evident point is Lysander Spooner, a 19th century apolitical maverick. In his essay No Treason, written in 1869, Spooner said:

The Constitution has no inherent authority or obligation. It has no authority or obligation at all, unless as a contract between man and man. And it does not so much as even purport to be a contract between persons now existing.

It purports, at most, to be only a contract between persons living eighty years ago [in 1789]. And it can be supposed to have been a contract then only between persons who had already come to years of discretion, so as to be competent to make reasonable and obligatory contracts.

Furthermore, we know, historically, that only a small portion even of the people then existing were consulted on the subject, or asked, or permitted to express either their consent or dissent in any formal manner. Those persons, if any, who did give their consent formally, are all dead now. Most of them have been dead forty, fifty, sixty, or seventy years.

AND THE CONSTITUTION, SO FAR AS IT WAS THEIR CONTRACT, DIED WITH THEM. They had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children. It is not only plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they COULD bind their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind them. That is to say, the instrument does not purport to be an agreement between any body but “the people” THEN existing; nor does it, either expressly or impliedly, assert any right, power, or disposition, on their part, to bind anybody but themselves.

While one can challenge Spooner’s position on the grounds of practicality, if he believes in the sanctity of liberty and the sovereignty of the individual, it is morally and legally all but impossible to argue against it.

Still, can’t one argue against Spooner’s “extremism” on the grounds that a constitution was needed to protect “the people”? After all, the U.S. Constitution is purported to limit government, not people. All well and good … but, as Alvin Toffler pointed out in The Third Wave, when it comes to so-called representative government, theory and reality are two very different propositions.

In the final installment of this in Fourth of July series, we’ll take a look at what Toffler had to say about representative government.

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ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. Ringer has appeared on numerous national talk shows and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron’s, and The New York Times. To sign up for his one-of-a-kind, pro-liberty e-letter, A Voice of Sanity in an Insane World, visit www.RobertRinger.com

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ROBERT RINGER is a New York Times #1 bestselling author and host of the highly acclaimed Liberty Education Interview Series, which features interviews with top political, economic, and social leaders. He has appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, The Tonight Show, Today, The Dennis Miller Show, Good Morning America, The Lars Larson Show, ABC Nightline, and The Charlie Rose Show, and has been the subject of feature articles in such major publications as Time, People, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Barron's, and The New York Times.

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One Response to “Constitution of No Authority”

Paul Anthony says:
July 3, 2010 at 6:04 pm
MAJORITY RULE
His party was the Brotherhood of Brothers,
and there were more of them than of the others.
That is, they constituted that minority
which formed the greater part of the majority.
Within the party, he was of the faction
that was supported by the greater fraction.
And in each group, within each group, he sought
the group that could command the most support.
The final group had finally elected
a triumvirate whom they all respected.
Now of these three, two had the final word,
because the two could overrule the third.
One of these two was relatively weak,
so one alone stood at the final peak.
He was THE GREATER NUMBER of the pair
which formed the most part of the three that were
elected by the most of those whose boast
it was to represent the most of most
of most of most of the state -
or of the most of it at any rate.
He never gave himself a moment’s slumber
but sought the welfare of the greatest number.
And all the people, everywhere they went,
knew to their cost exactly what it meant
to be dictated to by the majority.
But that meant nothing – they were the minority.
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